Amazon.com to ‘double down’ on India ops; sales up 20% to $23 billion

Amazon.com to ‘double down’ on India ops; sales up 20% to $23 billion

MUMBAI: Amazon.com has reiterated that it will continue to double down on its India operations, which is its fastest growing geography. Amazon India remains the company’s fastest growing geography in sales, and India’s online store is the largest with over 25 million products.

 

In its financial results for its second quarter ended 30 June, 2015, Amazon.com’s net sales increased 20 per cent to $23.18 billion, compared with $19.34 billion in second quarter 2014. Excluding the $1.39 billion unfavourable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 27 per cent compared to second quarter 2014. Operating income was $464 million in the second quarter, compared with operating loss of $15 million in second quarter 2014.

 

Net income was $92 million in the second quarter, or $0.19 per diluted share, compared with net loss of $126 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, in second quarter 2014.

 

Amazon’s operating cash flow increased 69 per cent to $8.98 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $5.33 billion for the trailing twelve months ended 30 June, 2014. Free cash flow increased to $4.37 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $1.04 billion for the trailing twelve months ended 30 June, 2014.

 

In India, Amazon launched the Global Selling Program for sellers, which enables them to access hundreds of millions of customers around the world. The Indian portal (Amazon.in) also introduced Sunday delivery across 100 cities in India for all FBA products at no additional cost. Moreover, Amazon Web Services (AWS) will also open a new region in India in 2016, which will enable customers to run workloads in India and serve Indian end-users with even better latency.

 

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said, “The teams at Amazon have been working hard for customers. We unveiled Amazon Business, opened Amazon Mexico, launched Prime free same-day, rolled out our ninth Prime Now city, broke our Black Friday record with the first-ever Prime Day, received 11 Emmy nominations for Transparent, debuted six new kids pilots, brought Echo to general availability, introduced the Alexa Skills Kit and Alexa Voice Service, opened FBA Small and Light, continued to double down on our fastest growing geography — India, launched 350 significant AWS features and services so far this year (ahead of last year’s pace), introduced AWS Educate, and entered into agreements for new solar and wind farms — enough to exceed our 2016 goal of 40 per cent renewable energy.”